Announcer: "Sleeping with the enemy" continues. Once again, John Quinones. Reporter: In Durham, North Carolina, time stands still for the friends and family of Janet abaroa. Just as it does for the investigation. What's left is one of the biggest unsolved crimes in Durham history. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country in the heart of Utah's Salt Lake valley, single mom Vanessa pond raises her 11-year-old daughter. The only man she can depend on is her father, and he says, she's fine with that. I used to jokingly refer to her as the "President of the man-hater's club." Reporter: So when this man, raven abaroa, a good-looking 28-year-old widower, tries to chat her up at their children's school, Vanessa is less then impressed. I wanted nothing to do with him or the conversation he was trying to have. Reporter: But within minutes, raven cracks Vanessa's hard shell, and she agrees to have lunch with him. What was it about him that you liked? He seemed very up-front, very honest and genuine. And I found that, you know, he was a single father. And I really, really admired that. I'd been a single mom for five years. I know what it takes to raise a child. I thought maybe I'll give him a chance because he could be a fantastic father, fantastic husband. Reporter: He might be. I finally fell for the nice guy, is what I thought. Reporter: Vanessa and raven were both raised Mormon, and she felt she could take raven and his son, Kaiden, under her wing. Did he mention his ex-wife? What happened to her? Yes. As we were just starting to date he just mentioned that, "My wife actually died." So I immediately felt so sorry for him, and I felt as though I wanted to be there for him. And accept him. And Kaiden. And to take them in, and give them all the love that they're missing out on. Reporter: Did he say she was murdered? He said that there was an intruder and that she was killed. And that he'd found her, and he left it at that. Reporter: But Vanessa, the daughter of a policeman, can't leave it at just that. She immediately goes online to learn all she can about raven's first wife. Breaking story right now -- 25-year-old Janet abaroa has been stabbed. Stand wounds. Stabbed in the chest. No one has been ruled out as a suspect. That night I stayed up until about 4:00 in the morning Reading blogs, watching his interviews, Reading all the news stories about it. And going out of my mind. Reporter: Thinking what? I wasn't convinced that he was innocent. Reporter: And this doesn't help -- a local TV interview ravens taped after his wife's death. Janet died that night. I remember watching the interview, and I wasn't convinced. In the interview, they asked him, what he saw when he came home to? I don't like talking about what happened to her, and it's not because I don't love her, and it's not because I don't want to find out who did it. It's bus I have so many good memories with her, you know, that I hate thinking about the bad times. So I went over and I spoke with him, asked him the questions that I had. And he removed any and every doubt from my mind. He had his stories about how people were trying to frame him. About how horrible the cops were. Reporter: Vanessa becomes convinced that raven is not responsible for his wife's murder. Now he would try to persuade her to start a life with him. He started talking about me moving in after probably just a few weeks, and that was very, very fast for me. Especially since I had my daughter to think about. And I told him that I wouldn't be moving in with anybody if I wasn't at least engaged to them, knowing that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with them. Reporter: Were you worried that this might be a mistake? I didn't have a question in my mind at the time. Reporter: Vanessa's father may be retired from the police force, but he has a cop's hunch and a father's instinct. The Christian side of me wants to believe that he is innocent till proven guilty. The police officer side of me says there is just -- there is something wrong with this picture somewhere. Reporter: Raven is summoned to an awkward face-to-face meeting with Vanessa's parents. They asked him if he had had anything to do with his wife's death. And his response was, well, he kind of sidestepped the question, and he didn't say, "Yes, I did it," or, "No, I didn't do it." He said, "I loved my wife. I loved her so much." Which insinuates that he didn't do it. But he didn't come right out and say that he didn't. He was in tears. And Vanessa went over and put her arm around him to console him and comfort him. And she says, "No, I know the guy by now, and I am really convinced that he is not guilty of this." At the end, they still had their reservations. But soon after that, raven asked my dad for my hand in marriage. It happened fast. It was like they met december-ish, I am thinking, in 2007. And by March, he was having her move in with him. By may, they were engaged. Reporter: Back east, Janet's family learns through the grapevine about raven's new life. And they are alarmed to learn he's planning to remarry. So they reach out to Vanessa with a dire warning. He's a dangerous person. We were fearful for her. As we are fearful for any woman that he becomes involved with. And they said, "Well, Vanessa, if we can tell you one thing, it's get out now." Reporter: Get out. Yeah. I was heartbroken. I did not want to believe, at all, that he had done this. Reporter: And she still married him. Yes. Reporter: What does that tell you? That he is a really good salesman. Reporter: Vanessa and raven are married in her parents' backyard. It would be a blended family, his 7-year-old son and her 6-year-old daughter. Vanessa's mom gives her a kiss and gives raven a message. Just take good care of my little girl. He promised me he would. Reporter: A honeymoon in Las Vegas follows, and raven tells his bride something that still makes her shudder to this day. He started talking about Janet and how mad he was after she died. Not how sad. Not how heartbroken. Just mad. Reporter: At whom? Just that she was dead. And th he cuddled up closer to me, and he said, "I promise I'll never hurt you." I didn't know what to think about that. Or how to feel about that. It scared me. Reporter: And that's not all that scares her. Even before the honeymoon is over, an outburst from nowhere. Within moments he could switch. He could say the most horrible things. I was an F'ing whore, a lot, an F'ing "B" word, and that one thing you never call a woman, that "C" word. And then moments later, he would apologize. "I'm sorry. I was just mad. That's just what I say when I'm mad. That's just what I do." Reporter: Then, Vanessa says, the mood swings become physical. He grabbed me from the door and threw me up against the wall, and then I fell. Later, he tried to convince me that I had tripped. He began to call my own family and my own friends and my co-workers, telling them that I was horribly depressed and bipolar, and that I probably needed to be institutionalized. Reporter: Just weeks into her marriage, Vanessa's living a nightmare. Back on the other side of the country, a man she has never heard of, begins working to prevent Vanessa from becoming the next victim. I kind of studied raven. I mean, he's certainly a narcissist, and I played the dumb southern cop, and he ate it up. Reporter: Stay with us.

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